Continuous improvement.

“Changes in the international economic situation, marked by large market shares captured by Japanese firms in the 1970s and the 1980s, made Western companies realise the necessity of changing their competitive advantages”
(Barad and Kayis 1994).

In today’s highly competitive market producers of goods and services see the way to survive and invest in the future growth only through achievement of sustainable competitive advantage.

Any organisation, producing goods or services, generates value. Walters and Lancaster (2000) identify value as a quantity of benefits added by the producer to a raw material or product for which customers are willing to pay more than otherwise would have been the case.

Another issue, closely associated with the final product is being quality. Quality of the product can be identified as its fitness for intended purposes. This fitness is being achieved by adding value to a raw material or product. Therefore it can be said that the degree ...